When It Comes To Dating, Which "Experience" Are You?

The type you are affects your dating experience. This is why
that is true:

Alright, first of all, I'll come right out with it. You already
know I consider "just be yourself" to be perhaps the most dangerous
and certainly the most generic bit of attraction advice I've ever
heard.

And with that bit of housekeeping behind us,
I'm going to suggest that you instead avoid trying to be someone you
are not.

At first glance, I'm sure that comes off as simply a
semantic variation upon the same worn out "just be yourself" cliché.
Kind of like the "mirror image" of it or something.

And were it such, it would be a throwaway. I agree.

Except there's this issue that keeps nagging away at me. As much
as I want to change things, "stop trying to be someone you are not"
is absolutely the most elegant possible utterance of an undeniable
truth. A truth that many of us willingly and defiantly ignore.

And that's keeping us from greatness with the opposite
gender.

So, in the interest of getting your
attention, today I'm going to illustrate what this truism entails in
a way you may have not heard before. After all, it's typical of
dating advice clichés that they be delivered in a decidedly "hit and
run" manner. Elaboration in any shape or form is practically unheard
of.

Consider this example:

Person A: "I just met someone great, but not my type at all."

Person B: "Well, you can't choose who you fall in love with."

Person A: "What does that mean?"

Person B: "You
know...you can't choose who you fall in love with."

Person A: "How do you know that?

Person B:
[changes subject to the Red Sox and/or Kobe Bryant]

Conveniently, "Person A" above has provided me with just the segue I
need to stay on-task.

This whole business of what
"type" we like. We talk about that a lot, huh? But have you ever
stopped to consider what "type" YOU are?

And
here's an even deeper question: Are you YOUR OWN TYPE? If
you've ever found time to ruminate upon this subject, then you may
have some idea of how you tend to be categorized by MOTOS (Members
Of The Opposite Sex). And here's the money question: Are you okay
with that?

See, it's like this. Most of us, unless
we've signed an NBA contract and are penciled in for a future
episode of MTV "Cribs", probably have one car. In order to get that
car (or is it a truck?), you went shopping. My guess is that you
knew up front whether you were going after a four wheel drive SUV or
a 2-seater sports car. Yeah, maybe in real life it was a minivan or
an econobox, but for the sake of decorum here lets stay on point
here.

If you need an SUV, the 2-seater won't cut
it. But if you want the wind in your hair and autocross trophies, a
foot and a half of ground clearance and a tailgate is not the hot
setup.

So if you are SUV hunting, you've got lots
of options. Most of us in that position would rather land a Hummer
H2 in our garage than a Kia Sportage or a Jeep Compass (which I
wouldn't personally wish upon anyone).

Sports car
guy? It's the Porsche GT3 over that new Saturn lawn-mower wannabee.
(Does that thing even take real gasoline?) But the Ferrari
F50...yeah, well. That's what I call "never settling".

Many options of varying degrees of quality-all easily categorized
under their appropriate "type".

I once saw a Hummer
commercial that exhorted me to "Experience The H2". Poetically, all
that is entailed with piloting a Ferrari was long ago coined "The
Italian Experience".

So which "Experience" are
you?

Some great women are what I call the
"Redhead Experience". Others are the "Exotic Experience". Still
others the "Girl Next Door Experience". Some are the "Tomboy
Experience". The list goes on.

Some guys are the
"Clean Cut Jock Experience". Others are the "Artistic Poet
Experience". Some are the "Executive Experience". Etcetera.

Where the rubber meets the road here there's an ironic truth. We can
CHOOSE which type we LIKE when it comes to MOTOS. If that's related
to sports cars, we can also then go out and DESERVE the F50 over the
'91 Mercury Capri (Ha...remember those?).

But when
it comes to ourselves, let's face it...there's a "type" that we
almost always fall naturally into. That's how others "experience" us
as individuals.

And we aren't always our own "type".
So we try to change the "experience". And that can backfire.

Emily happened to flip the channels a couple of months ago while
cooking dinner. From the other room, all I heard was "OMG...why is
this kid wearing BLACK NAIL POLISH?" That's was pretty much my
introduction to "The Pickup Artist" on VH-1.

Indeed. The "kid" should have thought twice about the black nail
polish. Not his "experience". Then again, were I to try and dress up
like Sean Connery's James Bond later tonight, I'd probably more
likely be assumed to be going as Alex Keaton from "Family Ties".

It's all about the "experience".

Ladies, tell the
media to "stick it" and avoid the "Blonde Experience" or the
"Supermodel Experience" if you are the "Brown Eyed Girl Next Door
Experience". Trust us when we as guys tell you (or at least a solid
percentage of guys tell you) that we're fine with your "type"...even
if YOU AREN'T.

Yeah, we may kick tires on SUVs,
sports cars and maybe even a three-quarter ton pickup truck when the
mood strikes us. But ultimately, after all the test drives, we're
only going to be parking one such shiny object in our respective
garages.

Who knows, we may have been somewhat
drawn to the "Blonde Experience" or the "Supermodel Experience" at
first. But maybe her tank always seemed to be on "E", or we read a
consumer report that told us the electrical systems tended to fritz
out.

But I'll tell you, when we meet the "Brown
Eyed Girl Next Door Experience" in her ultimate iteration, that
could stop us dead in our tracks. You know, she's the one who
DESERVES WHAT SHE WANTS. At that point, all of us who are shopping
on that lot will know we're dealing with the Ferrarri F-40 of her
type, instead of the Mercuri Capri with the Earl Scheib paint job.

Meanwhile, I'll be over here...at peace with the fact that I can't
fake "Cary Grant", but that plenty of women (including "Brown Eyed
Girl Next Door Experience", F-40 such that she is over in the next
room) are all about The "Alex Keaton Experience". So, I'm cool with
that. I stopped fighting what I can't control years ago in favor of
being the best damn version of my "type" possible instead of a poor
man's version of some other guy.

Perhaps not
coincidentally, I always loved how a four-door Audi RS4 (read:
"station wagon") can smoke a Corvette. Whatever your "experience",
go with it instead of fighting it. Then become the ultimate version
of it.

Just somebody get my Mother-In-Law to stop
pinching my cheeks, will you?

Scot McKay's dating strategies for those who refuse to settle for
anything less than the ULTIMATE relationship are found
here
Stop by right now and grab a FREE e-book ($20 value) when you sign up for
the X & Y Communications Newsletter, which is always packed with unique and
practical dating tips.

Want to hear more?
Scot McKay is the founder of X & Y Communications, a one-stop-shop
for dating resources. He is the author of the book 'Deserve What You Want',
and hosts the popular podcast series 'X & Y On The Fly' with his fiancée
Emily. Sign up for the unique and entertaining newsletter
here and receive a FREE GIFT.

This work is copyrighted by the author. No unauthorized duplication
or presentation allowed. All Rights Reserved Reprinted With
Permission